Jessie Richards One thing I always hate doing in the garden, is cutting strawberry runners.
Something about the lost potential really upsets me. Like cutting those runners is sacrificing all those tiny plants that could become more delicious strawberries.
The problem is though, if you don’t cut those runners off, sometimes you wind up with no strawberries at all. The thing is with these day-neutral varieties especially, strawberry plants either produce runners OR strawberries, and when they try to do both, they don’t do either thing very well.
And life is like that too.
Often, we are faced with a difficult decision. Do we bloom where we are planted, or do we send out ideas in all directions and hope that one of them grows roots in new and fertile soil?
Sometimes the answer is obvious at the time, and we can make the right decision. Other times, the dilemma is less clear, and we sit somewhat discontent, trying to decide what to do, all the while missing that magical timing.
My optimism is what often gets in the way in my garden and in my life. I tend to think that if I just wait a little bit longer, the answer will reveal itself, or the problem will fix itself…but that rarely happens.
In the case of the strawberry runners, my internal conflict means that I don’t clip the strawberry runners, and I don’t get strawberries, so I find myself existing in a sad fruitless limbo.
Know when to bear fruit, when to branch out and find new opportunities, and when to cut and run. Like strawberries, it could be your progeny that finds the spot in the sunlight, and there’s nothing wrong with that either.
